You can be the King of Tokyo

Ready for some fun battles?

Are you ready for a battle for supremacy in Tokyo? Not the kind of supremacy that takes a lot of strategic thinking and maneuvering. But a battle of supremacy with monsters storming Tokyo and knocking each other out.

Then you’ll love King of Tokyo.

King of Tokyo is a light-hearted, fun board game where you get to play “king of the hill” using dice, special abilities, and cool monsters.

See how to play and what Trevor thinks of the game in his video review of King of Tokyo.

Can the whole family enjoy King of Tokyo?

Pick your monster and have fun.

We love that King of Tokyo plays up to 6 players because that means our whole family can play the game together. While the recommended age for the game is 8+, we think younger kids may still enjoy the game as well. Kids love rolling dice and the basic game play and symbols on the dice is easy to understand.

But because King of Tokyo has a lot of attacking each other with dice rolls, younger kids may not enjoy the game as much. If they’re sensitive to being targeted or eliminated, King of Tokyo won’t be so much fun. But if they don’t mind that, they can have a great time with everyone else.

For the older kids (like teenage boys) and adults, King of Tokyo can be a blast. At the core it’s a simple dice rolling game. But the theme, monster characters, and abilities make it fun. When you’re trying to knock out your opponent to move your monster into Tokyo, then dice rolling takes on a whole new feel.

Hope your dice rolling is good.

Of course, you’ll also notice that the lower ratings in our family come from Brooke and Mom. Brooke likes to play the game going for points rather than attacking (and she’s had winning success that way). So even though they’ll enjoy playing it, our experience shows King of Tokyo to be a bigger hit with the male crowd.

What about player elimination?
In today’s world of board gaming, player elimination is not held in very high esteem. Most games being made now strive to keep all players in the game and engaged throughout so everyone can have a fun time. Having players knocked out with nothing to do isn’t much fun.

Sometimes though, eliminating players can be a lot of fun.

And that’s mostly what King of Tokyo is about – and it’s a lot of fun. However, because the game doesn’t take too long to play, eliminated players won’t have to wait very long for another game to start up. And even though they’re out of the game, they’ll be just as interested in the game to see who ends up being the ultimate King of Tokyo.

What’s the best number of players for King of Tokyo?

Buy cool special abilities.

King of Tokyo can also be played with less than 6 players – all the way down to 2. But we’ve found that playing with 2 players isn’t as fun. With 2 players it’s just a straight attack fest. Sure that’s a fun part of the game. But when you just have 2 players the game doesn’t last long enough to make use of the cards and special abilities they can add. So rather than building up energy and buying cards it’s just a quick game to see who can roll the most attacks.

With 4 or more players however, the game is great. Even though it’s not a deep thinking game, with more players, going into Tokyo and when to leave Tokyo are tougher decisions. Deciding which dice to keep and whether to roll for victory points also become more important. And building up special powers through buying cards adds a lot of flavor to the game. So with more players you get to experience more of the game elements which make it more enjoyable overall.

How does King of Tokyo score on the “Let’s Play Again” game meter? King of Tokyo scores high on our “let’s play again” game meter. I don’t think we’ve played a game of King of Tokyo without playing it at least a second time right after. Since the only thing required to set up the game is shuffling the deck of cards, it’s easy to get rolling right away. And the light-hearted fun of the game will keep it near the front of our game shelves for easy access to play many times.

Comments: 4

I just sent an email requesting number of players, ages and time to play. Apparently I was looking at your older reviews. I’ve been digging through your site and see that there is a very handy chart on the new reviews. You guys are all over it.

Thanks again for the great reviews. I love seeing your kids involved in the videos – we love big families!

Thanks for the recommendation! I picked this up last week and we tried it out over the weekend. Great fun. We had three players, I (the main gamer) was eliminated first and then wife and daughter (9) had a great time attacking each other in a tense showdown that wife won after knocking out daughter who was sitting on 19 points. We’re looking forward to trying out the Power Up! expansion the next time we play.

Charley – We just played the Power Up! expansion for the first time this weekend and we like it. The part we enjoy are the evolutions that each of the monsters can now obtain to give them each a unique boost.